When You Come Back Down
by wallyflower
Summary: During an ordinary Sorting, a certain professor looks into the ordinary brown eyes of an ordinary girl, and remembers an extraordinary woman. A classroom romance.
1. love is more thicker than regret

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created by J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The title and the song quoted in the beginning is from Nickel Creek's self-titled album.

**A/N:** This story, which has been sitting in my hard drive forever and which is now going up unedited, is an experiment on an often-explored theme. It contains no spoilers for OotP as of yet, but may do so in future chapters. Also, I have begun this story—as so many of my others—in medias res, because I've always found it difficult to begin a story _from the beginning_. I intend to give a background very soon. I apologise if this one is not as good as _As Miles to Go Before I Sleep_ (which has turned out to be my favourite next to _Learning to Breathe_), or you find the thought of Snape ogling an eleven year-old disturbing; I do as well. And the chapter title (however grammatically surprising) is from e.e. cummings.

_Dedicated to our very own Sabra Girl. May she find the heart to "Speak", and to finally kiss a certain someone next to a "Brand new sidewalk". _

**C h a p t e r o n e**

_Love is more thicker than regret_

_You got to leave me now, you got to go alone _

_You got to chase a dream, one that's all your own _

_Before it slips away _

_When you're flyin' high, take my heart along _

_I'll be the harmony to every lonely song _

_That you learn to play _

_When you're soarin' through the air _

_I'll be your solid ground _

_Take every chance you dare _

_I'll still be there _

_When you come back down._

The annual Sorting was not an activity that Severus Snape enjoyed. To him it merely signified the loss of his summer freedom, for which he was partly grateful, but mostly irritated—grateful because the noise and the activity that came with the school terms kept him from thinking too much, and irritated simply because he was Severus Snape.

This year's sorting seemed much like any other; it certainly was no different from the twenty-five or so Sortings that he had witnessed in his years as a teacher at Hogwarts. The first-years, in a state that Snape had long ago unconsciously labelled as 'liable-to-wet-their-pants', were rushed into the Hall, none of them in a great hurry to be first in line before facing the dingy glory of the Hat.

The ratty thing, having sung its song (to which Snape paid no attention; he almost twiddled his thumbs while looking at the dark ceiling), left Filius Flitwick to begin the ceremony as Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster still, looked on. As was his custom, Snape looked at all students in turn, sizing them up, filing their names and faces clinically in his mind, tracing lineages through surnames and judging which ones would be a credit to his House. "Abbot, Hans" looked nothing like his cousin Hannah and was sorted into Ravenclaw, while "Blackburn-Dwyer, Agatha", a small confection of blonde locks and ribbons, seemed to hide much behind her glassy blue eyes, as her sorting into Slytherin proved. As Flitwick's tiny voice announced each name, Snape's eyes roved down the line of knobbly-kneed wizards and witches, until he came upon a remarkable face.

For a brief, fleeting moment it was as though he was ages younger, and the room seemed to come out of focus and then come back swirling with the colours and memories of fifteen years ago, when eleven year old Harry Potter was to be sorted. As the present-day Snape, flabbergasted and unable to breathe, gazed hungrily at the tiny, brown-haired girl, a painfully familiar woman seemed to stare out of her eyes, which were—

—black.

Not brown, not the honeyed shade that he knew so well.

The illusion vanished, and he became aware that the girl had far too many freckles, and that her hair was straight and boring—not at all like the wild riot of tight curls that had haunted his dreams for the past decade or so. Sound rushed back into his ears, and he found that he could breathe again. The guilt—guilt for his inappropriate desires, for the trifling, silly pleasure that came with even just remembering her—that he had long ago begun to carry woke him up.

Had anyone noticed? The assembly's eyes were still turned to the diminutive figure of Professor Flitwick, and no one seemed to have seen Snape's brief fluctuation of sanity. He gave a small sigh of relief, but it was cut short when he turned and, just in time, saw a pair of blue eyes—blue seemed to have lost their twinkle—swivel away.

As the sorting ended and "Yale, Anika" was applauded by her new housemates ("HUFFLEPUFF!"), Dumbledore began to stand, and then stopped, remembering that he couldn't stand anymore. Snape cast a brief glance at the floating chair that supported Dumbledore's fragile frame, and fought the depression that clawed at him from the sight.

Sometimes, it simply wasn't fair.

He couldn't listen to Dumbledore's welcoming speech (although he was sure that it went something like 'Tuck in'), nor to the cacophonous riot that was the School Song. But when a deluge of scent attacked his nose, he knew that it was time to pick up his knife and fork, and to begin eating, and to keep up the illusion that he was alive. He wasn't sure that it actually worked; he didn't _feel_ alive, and people looked at him as though he were a rotting corpse, anyway.

Later he would relive the whole scene in his mind, and he wouldn't know if it happened during the soup or during dessert, whether it took place before or after Adrian and Albert Weasley had released a flood of synthetic snakes upon the Slytherin table, or what he had been thinking about when the door to the Great Hall, all of a sudden, flew open.

He was reminded, ridiculously enough, of Mad-Eye Moody.

It is strange, the things that come into a person's mind at odd moments like this one. For as she stood in the enormous doorway, hair in damp disarray and rainwater dripping off the ends of her cloak, all he could think of was that her eyes were still brown—not black, not electric blue, but brown.

All eyes turned towards her, and for a moment, silence filled the Hall. Much of the Head Table stood up (with the exception of Dumbledore, who could not; Snape himself, who was too paralysed to do so; and the other teachers, who had no idea who she was), as did most of the seventh-years and some of the younger students. The young woman herself might have been wearing her Order of Merlin, first class, on her breast, for all of the attention that she got.

Fame did not sit very well with her; she didn't know how to handle it, having been, for most of her life, unnoticed, even looked upon with annoyance. In the midst of that awful silence, her eyes darted desperately around the hall, looking for a lifeline—until her gaze met his.

It seemed to go on forever, that moment, and in that forever, the feelings that Snape was convinced he had long buried rose quickly to the surface; a nearly physical pain, like a heavy stone, settled into his stomach, and once again, he was carrying the weight of a burden that he thought he had dropped long ago.

He came back to himself, and the world again contained everyone else, not just the two of them. He looked away towards Dumbledore, who opened his mouth to speak.

'Good evening, Miss Granger.'

**(End chapter)**

11 December 2003


	2. kumrads die because they're told

**A/N:** I am sorry for the typographical errors found in the earlier chapter… I have tried my best to spot them and correct them. As for this instalment… I am sorry for the long wait (not that many _are _waiting!), but this needed a bit of sprucing up before it was decent enough to be in public view. As it is it's really quite maudlin, but I tried to inject some of Snape's old sarcastic, self-deprecating humour into the final lines, if only to show that he is still who he is.

The title, as in chapter one, is again taken from an e. e. cummings poem. I found it very fitting. Enjoy.

**C h a p t e r  t w o**

_Kumrads die because they're told _

He should have known, he thought as he slammed his way into the Headmaster's office late that evening, spitting the silly password—"Mars Bars"—at the impassive gargoyle that guarded it.

Snape fought the urge to bang his head against the stone wall as he ascended the moving staircase. He had sat there, an open-mouthed idiot, ogling the new professor, as Ceres Sprout moved briskly towards Hermione Granger to relieve her of her coat and lead her out of a side door, as everyone sat down to the remainders of dinner and the beginning of chatter. The new _professor_.

Perhaps he should have paid more attention to the new teachers—or rather, the lack of them. Of course there was the requisite new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Arthur Quimble or some such name (Snape had pretended to be chagrined at the appointment of the position that he supposedly desired for his own, if only to keep up the image that the Potions Master had made for himself), but there had been no one to replace Minerva McGonagall's professorial seat, as the old Transfigurations Mistress had decided to devote her time to Albus and to her duties as Deputy Headmistress.

Obviously, the person that McGonagall chose to charge with the position she had held for decades would have to be someone that the old cat trusted very much.

And there were very few people that McGonagall trusted.

And even fewer, those who were competent at Transfiguration.

It was all a matter of simple deduction, really.

He could have spared himself a lot of pain, if he had known early. Or, no, perhaps not—there still would have been pain, as came with every single reminder of her, but it would have been his to suffer alone.

He blinked, and found himself standing before the door to the Headmaster's office.

'Come in, Severus,' came the old, old voice from within, and as he opened the door, Snape grimaced once again at the annoying presumptuousness that Albus seemed to take to new heights every year. He felt like a… like a doll, or a tin soldier, that a twinkly-eyed child manipulated as he chose. Dumbledore, the old bastard thought that he could simply arrange everyone's lives as he _liked_—

Dumbledore looked at him gravely from a small pile of paperwork that had been sitting on his desk. Snape found himself unable to read that expression, and for a moment, hesitated in his anger, feeling his hot resentment ebb away in front of the only man that he had ever trusted.

Without invitation Snape sank into the armchair that he had, through the years, come to think of as his own. He doubted that anyone else used it, for Minerva, the only other person who came regularly to the office, preferred the straight-backed chair near the fireplace. Snape's old and slightly tattered seat sat before one of the Headmaster's windows, faced partly away from the stern scrutiny of the portraits and towards the cool, impassive night sky. He couldn't meet Dumbledore's eyes.

'Why did you do this, Albus?' Even to his own ears, his voice sounded tired.

There came the familiar, scratching sound of Albus' sweet-jar twisting open, and the scent of lemons rose to Snape's sensitive nose. This delay usually meant that the older man was deliberating on what to say, or how to say it.

'Minerva needed someone to replace her,' he finally said, after a long silence. The flames in the hearth flickered. 'I apologise.'

'I can't stay. I can't,' Snape said to Dumbledore's reflection in the glass. 'Her presence makes everything… difficult.'

'I seem to remember you saying that she made everything easier. Smoother, you said.'

There was no reply. Dumbledore watched the younger man's reflection sink deeper into the armchair, his chin nearly resting on his chest as his nervous hands clasped and unclasped the sides of the chair. He wanted to ask how Snape found her, whether he was happy to have seen her again after so many years, but it would sound a silly question. Of course he found her beautiful, of course he was happy to see her, but what bothered Severus, Dumbledore knew, was that she might not be as happy to see him. Might not have even thought of him.

If Severus had any faults, it was pride. He might have loved her with his very life but he wouldn't put his heart on the line, would not lay bare his affections towards her if he thought for one second that she might not feel the same way—that he might embarrass her, make her uncomfortable.

And he had suffered in silence for so long.

And he, Albus, had been the one to tear open the old wounds.

It hit the headmaster for the first time since her arrival that maybe he had been wrong to call her in. Hermione Granger was a very smart, clever young woman, more than competent at the subject she was to teach, and possessing that confident authority that commands respect and makes a good teacher. The other professors approved of her and remembered her very well, both from her years as a student and from her contributions in the battle. All of the students—some Slytherins aside—appeared (from what Albus had seen of their reactions, earlier) to be impressed with her, and willing to learn from someone so famous, although her age was not so very far from theirs. Minerva was ecstatic to have her back; Hagrid was joyfully making treacle tart and awaiting a visit from her; and Madame Pince was eager to speak with her about her collection of old volumes (a past-time of hers that went unnoticed by many but that was envied by many British scholars). Everyone seemed glad to have her staying with them.

Except for only one person… and this had seemed, at the time of her appointment, to be too small a difficulty to be bothered with.

Albus Dumbledore was suddenly faced with the enormity of the decision he had made, at least for the younger man, and felt a sharp stab of regret.

He looked down at the lemon drops in front of him, suddenly blurred with the prickling of tears. "I _am _sorry, Severus."

Snape hung his head. "I know."

The headmaster cleared his throat and spoke gently, "But you know that the decision cannot be changed… and I would be very grieved to have you leave us, Severus. You would be more than qualified for an occupation elsewhere, but permit me to say that it would be very difficult to replace you, not only as a teacher or as the head of Slytherin, but… as a friend, a neighbour if you will. Please stay."

Silence.

"I will try my best to keep you from unnecessarily being in one another's way," Albus murmured into the void, "although…" Here he stopped and gave a crooked smile, "I am sure that she would be very glad to speak with you again."

A pause, and then… Albus rejoiced inwardly at the sharp, doubtful snort that followed the brief silence.

He had his old Potions Master back.


End file.
